The Return of Doom
by WinterFrost15
Summary: Eddie Valiant has returned to his normal life in 1940's Hollywood. But for some reason, he is having a difficult time shaking away the demons of his past. Can Roger, Jessica, and his new wife Dolores help him before the ghost of Judge Doom haunts him again? Will they believe him when he claims dreams of his brother's killer tell of his return? They may just find out the hard way...


**CHAPTER ONE **

**~Dedicated to Bob Hoskins~ **

It had been several years since Eddie Valiant had defeated Judge Doom. Sometimes, Eddie still found himself dreaming of those glaring red eyes, and that shrill voice that he'd had, and wondered whether the toon really was dead. He'd seen him die, of course, after he'd been soaked in that Dip stuff of his. It was quite unforgettable in its own appalling way. But once in awhile, Eddie thought that he might have just survived, had somehow escaped from melting in that sickening green liquid. And occasionally, on lonely nights when his wife Dolores was at work, he would even imagine Doom's twisted face appearing from a steaming vat of Dip, his toon-ish red eyes ablaze, ready to lunge.

It was horrible, in a way, to still be plagued with the thoughts of his brother's killer. For a long time it had haunted him; he could still remember Teddy's scream as the piano fell on his head, the crunch of bones and flesh piercing the air - and Eddie's heart - like a knife. He remembered retching, trying to pull his broken arm out from under the vast instrument. He knew then and knew now that nothing he'd have done would've saved Teddy. If he'd only known Doom was going to drop that thing . . .

Eddie sighed, breaking himself out of his reverie. He couldn't think about Teddy anymore. The pain was still too much to handle at once. He had to do something else, something to make him forget the pain for awhile. After thinking about it for a moment, the answer came to him at once. He didn't know why he hadn't considered it before now.

"Roger," he whispered, getting up from his chair and walking over to the door. "I'll talk to Roger." He slipped on a brown coat and shoes, put on his hat, and darted out of his office.

Quickly, Eddie scrambled into his car and drove off toward Toontown. He knew Roger was probably spending time with his wife, Jessica, or else hanging out with some toon friends. But - and Eddie prayed dearly - he hoped Roger wasn't doing anything too important. He needed someone to talk to, and the fluffy, obnoxious little rabbit was his best option.

"Let's just hope I don't cause an accident on the way down there," Eddie murmured, as he zoomed past half the cars on the road. "Can't afford to get a serious injury, not with the kind of insurance -"

All of a sudden, he felt his skull burst open. He yelped, biting down on his lip forcefully. Keeping a hand on the wheel, he massaged his pounding head with the other furiously. "What the hell. . .?" he managed to gasp, before an explosion of agony gripped him and sent him spiraling into darkness.

The next moment, Eddie was standing in the Acme warehouse. He looked around, bewildered. How had he gotten here? Wasn't he supposed to be driving?

He was standing next to the Dip machine, the one Doom had constructed to wipe out Toontown. He looked at it, once more confused. This had been destroyed when he had taken out Doom. How had it gotten back here unscathed?

"Come on, Eddie!" he heard Roger yell. "Quit foolin' around!"

Eddie looked up at the sound of his friend's voice. He and Jessica were bound in rope, dangling from a hook. Roger was pressed up against his wife, trying to get away from the stream of Dip that was advancing towards them. Instinctively, Eddie threw open the door of the machine and turned the key, so that the machine shut itself down.

"Phew," Roger said, turning to smile at Jessica. "I wasn't worried . . . were you?"

Eddie stared at him. He was supposed to be talking to Roger right now. Why was he suddenly remembering the day he'd killed Doom, when he'd learned that it was him who had killed Teddy? Was he . . . unconscious? Lying in some hospital bed, delirious from . . . from an accident? It suddenly made sense. He must've blacked out while he was driving and was in the hospital! That's why this was all happening!

Eddie wasn't sure what to make of this, reliving his past like this. But, since he saw no chance of escaping it, he decided to go along with it. So, he watched - for the second time - as Doom was crushed by the steamroller, watched as he got up, flopping around like a pancake.

"Holy smokes, he's a toon!" Eddie heard himself shout once again.

"Surprised?" Doom replied in a slightly shrill voice. His flattened face was grinning maniacally at him. Eddie fought down a cringe, knowing what would happen next.

"Not really," Eddie shot back. "That lame-brained freeway idea could only be cooked up by a toon." This was it. This was the moment he had dreaded, the moment he had fought to suppress in his dreams for many years now. The moment Doom would reveal himself as the toon who killed his brother.

"Not just any toon!" Doom squealed, and he flopped his way over to the helium tanks. Once again, Eddie watched as his body inflated, filling with the gas which he knew would give the toon his squeaky, horrible voice. He wished he could stop him before he had to see his eyes. Those eyes still disturbed him, and they would until his dying day.

As expected, Doom turned around and faced Eddie. He hadn't realized how much the eyes would still scare him until that moment. They were awful; horrible, blood-red eyes that swirled with a madness unlike any being's he had ever seen. He found himself backing away, his eyes locked with the toon's evil ones.

"Remember ME, Eddie?" the chilling voice cried. "When I KILLED your brother, I talked . . . JUST . . . LIKE . . . THIIIIIIS!" Doom's eyes popped out of their socket, transforming into sleek, golden daggers with his red pupils gleaming from the tips. Eddie turned and ran away, afraid to look at him any longer. As always, he knew what was going to happen. Doom would fly at him and catch him by the shoulders. He'd then turn him around, smiling malevolently in his face as he whimpered like a five-year-old, and would throw him aside so he could turn on the Dip machine.

So, Eddie was surprised when something different happened. Doom caught him by the shoulders and turned him around, as he'd anticipated, but when Eddie looked at his face, he heard a voice in his head. The voice of Doom, before he had revealed his true self.

"Scared again, ay Valiant?" teased the other Doom. "I would've thought, even after all this time, that you'd gotten over your fear of me?"

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Eddie gasped, as the toon Doom gripped him tighter. "Are . . . are you responsible for this? Making me relive my past?"

"Perhaps," the other Doom chuckled. "But I guess you'll figure everything out in due time."

"What's th-that supposed to mean?" Eddie whispered, as the toon Doom continued to strengthen his hold on his arms. He swore he could feel his fingers burn through his clothes, scorching his flesh. He even felt dizzy; Toon Doom's face was swimming before his eyes, and he couldn't regain focus.

"Trust me, you'll find out for yourself," the Other Doom said, laughing. "Eventually."

Eddie heard nothing else in his mind, other than a ringing which was slowly becoming more and more painful the harder Toon Doom squeezed his arms. "L-Let go of me, you filthy, no-good. . ." But it was no use. Toon Doom was sucking the life out of him, his fingers pressing harder into his flesh until his whole body seemed to be stinging now.

"Look at me, Valiant," the toon said, in a slow, mesmeric voice. "If you listen to me, the pain will go away. Trust me."

"N-no!" Eddie croaked, struggling vainly in the monster's grasp. "I-I won't let you . . . kill me . . . like you did Teddy! I won't let you h-hurt me. . ."

"Oh, Valiant," Toon Doom tittered. "I'll do worse things than KILL you. You're too valuable; I need someone like you."

"F-for what. . .?" Eddie mumbled, the first vestiges of unconsciousness usurping his mind. Faintly, he was aware of those burning eyes studying him, a cruel smile reaching Doom's lips. No doubt he was planning to stab or shoot him at any minute.

"Let's leave that as a surprise, for later," Toon Doom answered, throwing him aside. "Meanwhile, I have plans. Trust me, Eddie Valiant, you may have thought you killed me all those years ago, but you were mistaken! I'm coming back to get you, and if any of your friends try to stop me, they'll be killed! Do you understand?"

The word 'understand' was echoed around in Eddie's mind, as slowly, excruciatingly, he was brought back into reality. He gasped, the force by which consciousness had returned rendering him breathless. For a moment, he didn't move, trying to steady his heart rate. When he felt ready to open his eyes, he suddenly realized that he couldn't move. He tried to move his arms, his legs, his head, but they wouldn't respond. He began to panic.

"Help!" he shouted. "I can't move! Help, somebody, PLEASE!"

"EDDIE!" a voice replied, and the next thing Eddie knew, Roger Rabbit was on top of him, smothering him in hugs and kisses.

"I thought you'd died! We were all so worried! What happened?" Roger cried all at once, wiping away his tears with his long white ears.

Eddie tried to sit up, finding he could indeed move a little bit. But before he could get into a sitting position, he felt a sharp pain in his chest and stomach, and plopped back down again. Wincing, he turned to Roger and said, "What's up, Doc?"

"So, you ARE okay, then!" Roger yipped, climbing off Eddie's bed. "It was horrible, we'd heard you got into a car accident!"

So, he HAD crashed. Was it all because of that strange dream/vision he'd had while he had been trying to visit Roger? That seemed the most likely reason. "We?" he said, looking around. "You mean, you and Jessica?"

"Yeah, me and her and your wife and just about everyone else!" Roger exclaimed, throwing his yellow-gloved hands up into the air. "As soon as I heard, Jessica drove the two of us around Toontown, telling everyone we could what had happened!"

As Roger went on, describing how they had found him and gotten him to the hospital, Eddie saw his wife Dolores crouching down next to him on his left. He smiled, and leaned over to kiss her. But a searing pain in his neck prevented him from doing so, so he just contented himself with smiling pleasantly at her.

"Hey there, babe," Eddie cooed, as Dolores stroked his cheek sympathetically. "What's shakin'?"

"You had me worried there for awhile," she said, her own smile faltering for a moment. "You were in bad shape when the hospital took you in. You were bleeding and sweating like crazy, and soon you were shouting and moaning, and I thought. . ." She swallowed. "I thought you weren't going to make it."

"I didn't think so, either," Jessica piped up. She was wearing a sparkly blue dress and a matching turquoise necklace; 'What a beauty,' Eddie thought with a wolfish grin. "The doctor said you had some broken ribs, a broken leg and arm, and a big gash running from your head down to your neck. And you STILL don't look too well, even after all the stitches. . ."

"And besides," Dolores interjected, with a pointed look at Jessica. "What really worried us was your shouting. Who were you talking to?"

Eddie swallowed hard, afraid of what she'd say if he told her she had seen Doom. "It was nothin', sweetheart," he insisted. "Just a bad dream, that's all." He smiled for good measure; he could tell, however, that Dolores was not convinced.

"Come on, Eddie," she implored. "Just tell us. It wouldn't hurt you that much, would it?"

Eddie took a deep breath, realizing she'd keep asking about it until he told him. Shifting a little in his hospital bed, he recounted the tale of how he'd blacked out at the wheel, and had relived the experience with Doom. When he told them about the other Doom's voice in his mind, and how the Toon Doom had promised him that he would return, the others shivered.

When Eddie had finished his story, he took another deep breath, his ribs and lungs throbbing painfully from the effort of talking. Dolores was looking at him with a concerned expression, trying to rub the sweat off his face with a towel, while Roger was shaking with fear in Jessica's arms, chewing loudly on his gloved fingers.

"This. . .this is horrible!" Roger stammered, pulling nervously at his ears. "Doom said he was gonna come BACK?! I thought we killed 'im!"

"We did," Eddie said grimly. "That's what's botherin' me. How could a man come back when he's already dead?"

"You mean a toon," Jessica corrected. She hadn't meant the statement to sound gruff, but maybe it was just because she was thinking hard. "A toon can't come back once it's been Dipped. We've seen that already. So how in the world does Doom think he can resurrect himself?"

"Well, maybe it was just all in my head," Eddie replied, a sort of uneasy relief flooding through him. "I don't know. I HAVE been thinking about Doom an awful lot lately. Maybe it was just a stress-related thing, ya' know? Maybe I'm gettin' paranoid. . ." He grunted as a fresh wave of pain washed through his brain.

"You okay, Eddie?" Roger squeaked, edging toward him tentatively.

"Yeah," Eddie mumbled. "Headache." But he wasn't so sure if it was or not. What if his vision of Doom had been a message? A message from the toon himself, warning Eddie of horrible things to come? If this really WAS a message from Doom, what would the toon do to him . . . once he managed to capture him? Would he torture him? Cut off his limbs, one by one? Dissect his brain? And what if Doom was trying to control his mind at this very moment. . .?

"Eddie!" Dolores cried. Her voice was faint, so faint Eddie could hardly hear her. His vision was going blurry, and he had the nasty feeling he was about to faint.

"I'm . . . I'm fine, Dolores, really," he assured her, shaking his head to clear it. "Just . . . dizzy. I-I'll be . . . okay . . ." And, before Eddie could get another word out, he sank into darkness and despair once more.

~*?*~

When Eddie woke up again, he was breathing heavily. His throat felt raw, as if he'd been screaming, and his body ached worse than before. He was still in the hospital; he could tell by the furniture and lighting. Turning his head a little, he could see Dolores sitting in an armchair, snoozing softly. To his right, Roger had fallen asleep as well. He had Eddie's hand cupped in his own, as if he had been trying to comfort him before falling into slumber. Eddie smiled at the rabbit, silently thanking him for being kind, and looked up blankly at the ceiling. 'What to do now?' he thought.

He couldn't go to sleep, that was for certain. If he did, he'd probably suffer from more Doom-related nightmares. No, he had to stay awake no matter what. Even if he was exhausted, he couldn't let himself be tormented. He couldn't, he wouldn't, he. . .

More pain arrived to greet him. Eddie closed his eyes, groaning. "Damn it," he cursed under his breath. "Why did I have to get in that stupid accident? And why can't I stop thinking about Doom for once?"

"Eddie," Dolores murmured sleepily. "Izzat you?"

"Yeah," Eddie whispered back, fighting back a wave of nausea. "Have some stomach pains. Woke me up. Sorry for waking you, too."

"It's okay," Dolores said, beginning to fall asleep again. "Goodnight, Eddie."

"Goodnight, sweetheart," Eddie replied, as his wife sank back into her armchair. Hopefully, her dreams were not as disturbed as his seemed to be. Maybe she was thinking about the time they had gone to the beach together for their anniversary. 'That would a nice dream to have,' he thought, smiling at the memory. But then he remembered that Teddy had come with them, and stopped thinking about it. 'Don't think about Teddy,' he told himself. 'Don't think about Doom. Just don't think at all.'

But his latest dream about Doom was cycling through his mind, refusing to fade from his memory. Finally, Eddie had no choice but to look back on the nightmare, for its wicked message was pressing on his mind so relentlessly. He closed his eyes, took a long, steadying breath, and began to remember what he had just seen. . .

~*?*~

The room was complex and brightly lit, and his body ached with the sensation of bitter coolness. Eddie opened his eyes to find that he was strapped down to an operating table. Terrified, he desperately tried to escape from his bonds. But no amount of pulling and twisting helped. The more he struggled, the more the cuffs around his wrists and ankles seemed to tighten, using all their might to ensure that he stayed imprisoned.

After a minute or two, Eddie gave up; his arms and arms were going numb from lack of circulation. He lay, quite vulnerable, in the brilliant light of observation lamps, trying to find who had trapped him here. Not that he didn't already suspect Doom. He knew it must've been him that had done this. He was probably planning to torture him, for some reason that still eluded his grasp. Was Doom doing this out of revenge for trying to kill him at Marvin Acme's factory? For stopping his plans to build that ridiculous freeway? Or was Doom simply torturing him just for the heck of it?

Eddie didn't have much more time to think about it, however, before Doom himself appeared, carrying in his hand what appeared to be a very large needle. Doom smiled as he approached him.

"Hello, Mr. Valiant," he said. This was the normal Doom, the one he had first met in Acme's warehouse. The Doom without rabid toon eyes or a high-pitched voice.

"Hi there," Eddie replied sarcastically. "Long time, no see, eh?"

"Quite so," Doom chortled, setting his needle down gently upon a small metal table. "Now, are we ready to proceed with the tests?"

"Depends," Eddie answered coldly. "Does it involve mathematics or spelling? Or is history more ya' cup of joe?"

"DON'T play games with me, Eddie!" Doom growled, slapping him across the face like a whip. "You know what will happen if you don't cooperate!"

"Exactly, no, I don't know what will happen," Eddie replied sharply. "And honestly, I don't really want to know or care about what you'll do to me." His last statement wasn't entirely true. Nevertheless, he wanted to seem resilient, impassive, and, well, VALIANT. He couldn't let Doom see that he was weak.

"Brave words, Eddie," Doom said, his lips showing the slightest traces of a smirk. "But I'm afraid no amount of bravery will help you now. . ." He now reached for the needle he'd put on the table and held it up for Eddie to see. "This is a seductive. With this, I'll be able to stop you from trying to interrupt my experiments."

"There won't BE any experiments, Doom!" Eddie shouted at him, straining with all his remaining power against his cuffs. "'Cause I'm breakin' outta here! And if I have to rip your head off ta' do it, then I will! That's a promise!"

Doom seemed unfazed by this threat. In fact, the intimidation seemed to amuse him. Eddie gritted his teeth furiously as he rolled with laughter, wishing that at least one of his legs was free so that he could kick the living tar out of the deranged man/toon.

"Honestly, you're just a RIOT!" Doom guffawed, clutching his stomach with glee. "I should be grateful to not have disposed of you the last time we met! I'd forgotten just how plucky and IMPRUDENT you were!"

"I'm guessing that's meant to be an insult, Doom?" Eddie asked indignantly. "Because that makes me pretty ticked off, ya' know. . ."

Suddenly, Doom's manner changed; he became his usual, unrelenting self once again. "I'm wasting time here, aren't I?" he said, almost to himself. "Well, that shall soon be fixed!" He tapped at the needle in his hand, staring at it thoughtfully. "Yes, I think it's time we got down to business."

TO BE CONTINUED. . .

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

**This was a story I started about a year ago and left unfinished on my laptop. Due to the passing of Bob Hoskins, my motivation to try and complete it has been renewed. Strange what grief will do to you, what it makes you do after the fact that you might not have done before. But anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this. I know I will certainly cherish writing it. Let me know what you think, please. I want to do if I'm doing this justice. **


End file.
